


Day 9: Christmas Lists

by ConsultingPurplePants



Series: 25 Days of Fic-Mas (originally posted to tumblr) [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Lists, Fluff, Hey look I wrote an actual fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:46:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingPurplePants/pseuds/ConsultingPurplePants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock writes two Christmas lists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 9: Christmas Lists

**Author's Note:**

> Wow ok so I wrote an actual-length fic? Kind of?

Sherlock comes into the kitchen one morning to find a piece of paper stuck to the fridge. He looks over at John, who is drinking his tea as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening, then back at the paper, then finally lets his curiosity get the better of him and stalks over to the fridge. He crouches a little to be able to read the list (John really is quite short) and sees, in John’s messy doctor writing:

_A new microwave (because eyeballs really shouldn’t have gone in there)_

_A new kettle (because there are other ways to determine the boiling point of pig’s blood)_

_More tea (because you drank all of mine)_

_Jaffa cakes (because you took the last one)_

_A new laptop (because I know where that virus came from)_

Sherlock rolls his eyes, then walks over to the kitchen table. He drags his dressing gown out of the way so that he can sit down dramatically enough (John must never know that he plans these things) and drops into his chair with a heavy sigh.

“Why is there a list of passive-aggressive demands on the fridge, John?”

John smiles in that _oo, I know a social nicety that Sherlock isn’t aware of_ way of his (John must also never know that Sherlock catalogs his facial expressions) and responds, “It’s a Christmas list, Sherlock. Christmas is coming up in a couple of weeks.”

“Am I expected to obtain all of those items and give them to you, then?” He can probably find all these things online; no need to leave the flat.

“You don’t have to get all of them; they’re just things that I want and if you think it’s... appropriate to get me any of them, you can get them as Christmas gifts for me.”

“And am I expected to make one of these ridiculous lists as well?” This could get very tedious, very fast, and Sherlock is probably not going to have the patience for it.

“Well, yeah. How else will I know what to get you for Christmas?”

Just as he thought... this is going to be very annoying. Sherlock huffs loudly to make sure his annoyance is known to John (why is he snickering like that) and dramatically whirls his dressing gown around himself on his way back to his bedroom.

***

This is turning out to be just as tedious as he expected; the things he does to please John! It’s now four o’clock in the morning, and he’s been sitting at the kitchen table wondering what he wants for Christmas for approximately six hours now. John had gone to bed ages ago, leaving him alone in the kitchen, and Sherlock can hear him shifting around in bed upstairs. It’s a pretty reassuring sound, actually, and Sherlock lets it calm him before he focuses on the list again.

What does he want for Christmas? The only things he can really come up with seem incredibly unrealistic, especially since John would probably never even consider giving them to him. The current list reads:

_A hug (potentially more than one)  
(More than one is preferable)_

_A belly rub (on the sofa)_

_~~A kiss (this is ridiculous)~~ _

_A kiss_

_~~Tell me you love me (please)~~ _

It’s very clearly four o’clock in the morning, he only gets this stupidly sentimental at ridiculous hours of the night. Sherlock looks down again, scratches out the whole list, and picks up the biro to start again. It’s very late, though, and his eyelids start to droop before he can get so much as another word written down. His head droops next, and before he knows it he’s fast asleep, on his face on the kitchen table.

***

When he wakes up, John is sitting at the table with him with two pieces of toast on a plate. He pushes them towards him just as he starts to re-orient himself.

“You need to eat, clearly. You fell asleep sitting down!” John smiles his _please eat something_ smile. Sherlock grudgingly agrees and takes a bite of toast. John nods approvingly, then continues. “Did you get a chance to work on your Christmas list?”

Sherlock freezes. He has a sort of vague memory of writing a clearly _not good_ list last night, but it’s nowhere to be found when he glances around. The memory has a kind of blurry quality to it, and he starts to wonder if he dreamed it.

“I... did... But I can’t seem to find it?” He hates not knowing things, and he hates that he can’t even tell if he dreamed the list or not.

“Well, there was nothing on the table when I got down here... Are you sure you wrote one?”

It must have been a dream, then. It’s highly unlikely that John would’ve encountered _that_ list and not said anything about it. He shakes his head to clear it, then finishes off his toast.

“Sorry, must have been in my mind palace or something. I’ll write one.” John will be disappointed if he doesn’t.

“All right. I’m off to work then.” John clears his plate and walks out of the kitchen, leaving Sherlock to write another list. He scrawls down a few things,

_4 cow’s eyeballs (human if Molly has them)_

_1 cirrhotic liver_

_1 set of lungs with cystic fibrosis (please leave the mucus intact)_

_1 heart with congenital cardiomegaly_

pins it to the fridge, then pulls out John’s laptop (what’s left of it) and orders John’s gifts, making sure to delete the browsing history afterwards. John knows what he’s getting, but he’s not going to make it _that_ easy for him.

***

On Christmas day, Sherlock emerges from his room with another carefully-executed whirl of his dressing gown to find absolutely no gifts under the tree for him. There’s the small, carefully arranged pile he had left there yesterday, but those are all for John. He knows his list wasn’t particularly realistic (congenital cardiomegaly is pretty rare), but he was still expecting... something. He can feel the disappointment growing, an ugly tightness in his chest, just as John comes downstairs and somehow reads the situation perfectly.

“Don’t look like that, you git. They all had to be refrigerated!”

Sherlock quickly goes over his reaction in his head, then realizes that he was being completely illogical. How would the mucus from the lungs ever keep if it wasn’t refrigerated? It would have been completely dry and completely useless to his --

“Sherlock! Come on, go look at your gifts!” John looks very excited, so Sherlock pulls himself out of his head and heads into the kitchen. He pulls open the fridge and finds several large, sealed, and labelled containers. This Christmas is already looking much better than the last one (no, don’t think about that, Magnussen and Mary are both gone now), and he grins as he turns to John.

“Thank you, I can see the eyes have been very well preserved.” John smiles back, and Sherlock looks over into the sitting room. “I hope your gifts will be satisfactory as well.”

John gets an odd sort of look in his eye, but it disappears almost as fast as it appeared (not in the catalog?). John heads into the sitting room and they both sit on the floor to open John’s gifts. He laughs at the new microwave and kettle, they eat some of the Jaffa cakes, and then John’s eyes widen as he takes in the laptop.

“Sherlock! That’s a really nice laptop!” He looks like he can’t quite believe it.

“Well, since we’re both going to be using it, I thought I would get something that was up to my standards.” He smiles, and John laughs, and then John is pulling him to his feet with that kind of twinkle in his eye that Sherlock catches every now and again, but never knows what to do with. Sherlock stands up, then startles as John puts his arms around him and squeezes.

“Thank you, Sherlock. Everything is lovely.”

Sherlock has no idea what to do. John’s arms squeeze him a little tighter, and he reaches up and puts his arms around John, too. This feels... nice. Very nice. He feels comfortable and at home, and he feels a little empty when John pulls away.

***

A couple of days later, they’re both sitting on the sofa because John has somehow coerced him into watching some kind of ridiculously unrealistic spy movie. The main character has slept with the entire female cast at this point, but John only laughs when Sherlock points out his chances of having some sort of STI.

“It’s a movie, Sherlock. Just relax.” And then John does something completely unexpected. He pulls Sherlock closer so that he’s nearly lying on top of John, and simply holds him there.

“Is this ok, Sherlock?”

He sounds a bit uncertain, but Sherlock gives a shocked (and awed) nod and lets himself relax into John. John is absently rubbing circles into his belly while focusing on the movie, but Sherlock can’t get his thoughts to focus past I am touching John I am lying on John this is happening. John, who for some reason can always sense these things, rubs a little more and whispers, “Just relax, Sherlock,” into his ear, and Sherlock lets himself go.

When he wakes up the next morning with a blanket carefully tucked around him, he’s not even quite sure it really happened.

***

It’s New Year’s Eve, and John has somehow convinced him to wear a silly paper crown with the year emblazoned on it. They’re both full of Mrs. Hudson’s food and are sitting on the sofa, comfortably drowsy. John is keeping an eye on his watch, which now reads 23:58.

“Only two minutes to go, now!” John smiles up at him excitedly, sitting just a little closer than he usually would. Sherlock finds he doesn’t mind at all, and keeps trying to inch a little bit closer when John’s not looking. He’s fairly sure John’s noticed at this point, but he hasn’t done anything to stop him, so he keeps going.

The lights are a little dim in the flat, and Sherlock would almost say it was romantic lighting if he didn’t know that John wasn’t interested in him like that. He smiles a bit wistfully at the thought, then shakes himself back into the present and sneaks a look at John’s watch. 23:59. Not long now.

00:00. He hears people cheering outside, excited for what the new year will bring them (absolutely nothing, haven’t they learned by now?). John touches his arm.

“Sherlock. Hey. Look at me.” Sherlock looks down, confused. John says, “Happy New Year, Sherlock,” and kisses him softly on the mouth.

Sherlock freezes. His mind settles into a consistent loop of _John is kissing me John is kissing me John is kissing me John is kissing me,_ but then John winds a hand into his hair and it whips him back into the present, and John’s mouth is so soft and warm and his whole body is tingling and he feels wonderful, no wonder people do this all the time, and then John’s tongue strokes past his and he stops thinking altogether.

A perfect eternity later, John pulls back, and Sherlock’s brain whirs back to life. John just kissed him. John just...

And then it comes crashing down on him. The hug. The belly rub. The kiss. _The list._ The list exists. And John had come down for breakfast that morning, seen a piece of paper probably crushed under his face and pulled it out, and had _kept it,_ and was giving him the things on it. Sherlock feels a bit like he’s floating for a moment, and then John touches his arm again. Sherlock clears his throat, feeling like he should probably say something.

“John... You don’t have to... If you don’t want to do this, you really don’t have to. It was just a silly list, you were never meant to --”

John kisses him again, cutting him off. “Sherlock, I came downstairs that morning to the most adorable thing I had ever seen. You were asleep on your face, your dressing gown was tucked around you like a blanket, and did you know you mumble in your sleep? There was a piece of paper squished under your face, and I pulled it out, and Sherlock, if I had known you felt that way I would’ve done something about it _years_ ago. Literally _years_ ago. And I sat there eating breakfast and watching you mutter to yourself for nearly an hour, and the whole time I just wanted to wake you up and tell you this.”

John is cupping Sherlock’s face in his hands now, and Sherlock is having trouble thinking.

“Tell me what, John?” He has a feeling he knows what’s coming, but he doesn’t dare hope.

John rolls his eyes in his _I know you know what I’m about to say, Sherlock_ way, and Sherlock holds his breath, and John says, “I love you, Sherlock. I always have.” Sherlock releases the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding, and he crushes John to himself in a hug (because _more than one is preferable_ ), and Sherlock wishes they could stay like this forever (and now that he knows this, perhaps they can).

In the end, Sherlock grudgingly admits, Christmas lists aren’t so tedious after all.


End file.
